Solicitor General of the United States

"USSG" redirects here. For the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, see United States Federal Sentencing Guidelines. For the U.S. Surgeon General, see Surgeon General of the United States.

United States Solicitor General
Flag of the United States Solicitor General
Incumbent Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. since June 9, 2011
Department of Justice Office of the Solicitor General
Reports to	The Attorney General
Appointer	The President with Senate advice and consent
Constituting instrument	28 U.S.C. § 505
Formation	October 1870 Prior to this date, the Attorney General exercised most of the duties now performed by the Solicitor General.
First holder	Benjamin H. Bristow
Website	Office of the Solicitor General

Organization of the office of the Solicitor General

The United States Solicitor General is the third-highest ranking official in the U.S. Department of Justice. The United States Solicitor General is the person appointed to represent the federal government of the United States before the Supreme Court of the United States. The current Solicitor General, Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 6, 2011, and sworn in on June 9, 2011. The Solicitor General determines the legal position that the United States will take in the Supreme Court. In addition to supervising and conducting cases in which the government is a party, the office of the Solicitor General also files amicus curiae briefs in cases in which the federal government has a significant interest in the legal issue. The office of the Solicitor General argues on behalf of the government in virtually every case in which the United States is a party, and also argues in most of the cases in which the government has filed an amicus brief. In the federal courts of appeal, the Office of the Solicitor General reviews cases decided against the United States and determines whether the government will seek review in the Supreme Court. The office of the Solicitor General also reviews cases decided against the United States in the federal district courts and approves every case in which the government files an appeal.

Composition of the Office of the Solicitor General

The Solicitor General is assisted by four Deputy Solicitors General and seventeen Assistants to the Solicitor General. Three of the deputies are career attorneys in the Department of Justice. The remaining deputy is known as the "Principal Deputy," sometimes called the "political deputy" and, like the Solicitor General, typically leaves at the end of an administration. The current Principal Deputy is Ian Heath Gershengorn, who succeeded Sri Srinivasan, who left after being confirmed as a United States Circuit Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The other deputies currently are Michael Dreeben, Edwin Kneedler, and Malcolm Stewart.

The Solicitor General or one of the deputies typically argues the most important cases in the Supreme Court. Cases not argued by the Solicitor General may be argued by one of the assistants or another government attorney. The Solicitors General tend to argue 6–9 cases per Supreme Court term, while deputies argue 4–5 cases and assistants each argue 2–3 cases.

Significance

The Solicitor General, who has offices in the Supreme Court Building as well as the Department of Justice Headquarters, has been called the "tenth justice" as a result of the relationship of mutual respect that inevitably develops between the justices and the Solicitor General (and their respective staffs of clerks and deputies). As the most frequent advocate before the Court, the Office of the Solicitor General generally argues dozens of times each term. As a result, the Solicitor General tends to remain particularly comfortable during oral arguments that other advocates would find intimidating. Furthermore, when the office of the Solicitor General endorses a petition for certiorari, review is frequently granted, which is remarkable given that only 75–125 of the over 7,500 petitions submitted each term are granted review by the Court.

Other than the justices themselves, the Solicitor General is among the most influential and knowledgeable members of the legal community with regard to Supreme Court litigation. Five Solicitors General have later served on the Supreme Court: William Howard Taft (who served as the 27th President of the United States before becoming Chief Justice of the United States), Stanley Forman Reed, Robert H. Jackson, Thurgood Marshall, and Elena Kagan. Some who have had other positions in the office of the Solicitor General have also later been appointed to the Supreme Court. For example, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. was the Principal Deputy Solicitor General (and Acting SG for one case) during the George H. W. Bush administration and Associate Justice Samuel Alito was an Assistant to the Solicitor General. Only one former Solicitor General has been nominated to the Supreme Court unsuccessfully, that being Robert Bork; however, no sitting Solicitor General has ever been denied such an appointment. Eight other Solicitors General have served on the United States Courts of Appeals.

Within the Justice Department, the Solicitor General exerts significant influence on all appeals brought by the department. The Solicitor General is the only U.S. officer that is statutorily required to be "learned in law." Whenever the DOJ wins at the trial stage and the losing party appeals, the concerned division of the DOJ responds automatically and proceeds to defend the ruling in the appellate process. However, if the DOJ is the losing party at the trial stage, an appeal can only be brought with the permission of the Solicitor General. For example, should the tort division lose a jury trial in federal district court, that ruling cannot be appealed by the Appellate Office without the approval of the Solicitor General.

Call for the Views of the Solicitor General

When determining whether to grant certiorari in a case where the federal government is not a party, the Court will sometimes request the Solicitor General to weigh in, a procedure referred to as a "Call for the Views of the Solicitor General" (CVSG). In response to a CVSG, the Solicitor General will file a brief opining on whether the petition should be granted and, usually, which party should prevail.

Although the CVSG is technically an invitation, the Solicitor General's office treats it as tantamount to a command. Philip Elman, who served as an attorney in the Solicitor General's office and who was primary author of the federal government's brief in Brown v. Board of Education, wrote "When the Supreme Court invites you, that's the equivalent of a royal command. An invitation from the Supreme Court just can't be rejected."

The Court typically issues a CVSG where the justices believe that the petition is important, and may be considering granting it, but would like a legal opinion before making that decision. Examples include where there is a federal interest involved in the case; where there is a new issue for which there is no established precedent; or where an issue has evolved, perhaps becoming more complex or affecting other issues.

Although there is no deadline by which the Solicitor General is required to respond to a CVSG, briefs in response to the CVSG are generally filed at three times of the year: late May, allowing the petition to be considered before the Court breaks for summer recess; August, allowing the petition to go on the "summer list", to be considered at the end of recess; and December, allowing the case to be argued in the remainder of the current Supreme Court term.

Traditions

Several traditions have developed since the Office of Solicitor General was established in 1870. Most obviously to spectators at oral argument before the Court, the Solicitor General and his or her deputies traditionally appear in formal morning coats, although Elena Kagan, the first woman to hold the office, elected to forgo the practice.

During oral argument, the members of the Court often address the Solicitor General as "General."

Another tradition, possibly unique to the United States, is the practice of confession of error. If the government prevailed in the lower court but the Solicitor General disagrees with the result, he or she may confess error, after which the Supreme Court will vacate the lower court's ruling and send the case back for reconsideration.

List of Solicitors General

Picture	Solicitor General	Date of Service	Appointing President
	Benjamin H. Bristow	October 1870 – November 1872	Ulysses Grant
	Samuel F. Phillips	November 1872 – May 1885
	John Goode	May 1885 – August 1886	Grover Cleveland
	George A. Jenks	July 1886 – May 1889
	Orlow W. Chapman	May 1889 – January 1890	Benjamin Harrison
	William Howard Taft	February 1890 – March 1892
	Charles H. Aldrich	March 1892 – May 1893
	Lawrence Maxwell, Jr.	April 1893 – January 1895	Grover Cleveland
	Holmes Conrad	February 1895 – July 1897
	John K. Richards	July 1897 – March 1903	William McKinley
	Henry M. Hoyt	February 1903 – March 1909	Theodore Roosevelt
	Lloyd Wheaton Bowers	April 1909 – September 1910	William Taft
	Frederick W. Lehmann	December 1910 – July 1912
	William Marshall Bullitt	July 1912 – March 1913
75px	John W. Davis	August 1913 – November 1918	Woodrow Wilson
	Alexander C. King	November 1918 – May 1920
75px	William L. Frierson	June 1920 – June 1921
75px	James M. Beck	June 1921 – June 1925	Warren Harding
75px	William D. Mitchell	June 1925 – March 1929	Calvin Coolidge
	Charles Evans Hughes, Jr	May 1929 – April 1930	Herbert Hoover
75px	Thomas D. Thacher	March 1930 – May 1933
75px	James Crawford Biggs	May 1933 – March 1935	Franklin Roosevelt
75px	Stanley Reed	March 1935 – January 1938
75px	Robert H. Jackson	March 1938 – January 1940
	Francis Biddle	January 1940 – September 1941
75px	Charles H. Fahy	November 1941 – September 1945
	J. Howard McGrath	October 1945 – October 1946	Harry Truman
75px	Philip B. Perlman	July 1947 – August 1952
	Walter J. Cummings, Jr.	December 1952 – March 1953
75px	Simon Sobeloff	February 1954 – July 1956	Dwight Eisenhower
	J. Lee Rankin	August 1956 – January 1961
	Archibald Cox	January 1961 – July 1965	John F. Kennedy
75px	Thurgood Marshall	August 1965 – August 1967	Lyndon Johnson
	Erwin N. Griswold	October 1967 – March 1973
	Robert H. Bork	March 1973 – January 1977	Richard Nixon
	Daniel Mortimer Friedman (acting)	January 1977 – March 1977	Jimmy Carter
75px	Wade H. McCree	March 1977 – August 1981
75px	Rex E. Lee	August 1981 – June 1985	Ronald Reagan
	Charles Fried	October 1985 – January 1989
75px	Kenneth W. Starr	May 26, 1989 – January 20, 1993	George H. W. Bush
	John Roberts (acting)	1990 for the purposes of one case when Ken Starr had a conflict	George H. W. Bush
	Drew S. Days, III	May 1993 – July 1996	Bill Clinton
	Walter E. Dellinger III (acting)	August 1996 – October 1997
	Seth P. Waxman	November 1997 – January 2001
	Barbara D. Underwood (acting)	January 2001 – June 2001	George W. Bush
	Theodore B. Olson	June 2001 – July 2004
75px	Paul D. Clement	June 2004 – June 2005 (acting) June 2005 – June 2008
	Gregory G. Garre	June 2008 – October 2008 (acting) October 2008 – January 2009
	Edwin Kneedler	January 2009 – March 2009 (acting)	Barack Obama
	Elena Kagan	March 2009 – May 2010
	Neal Katyal	May 2010 – June 2011 (acting)
	Donald Verrilli Jr.	June 2011 – present

List of Principal Deputy Solicitors General

• John G. Roberts – 1989–1993
• Seth Waxman – 1996–1997
• Barbara D. Underwood – March 1997 to January 2001 (acting SG from January to June 2001)
• Paul D. Clement – 2001 to July 2004 (became acting SG)
• Neal Katyal – January 2009 to May 2010 (became acting SG)
• Leondra Kruger – (acting principal deputy SG named in August 2010)
• Sri Srinivasan – August 2011 to May 2013
• Ian Gershengorn – since August 2013

External links

• Official website